Bill and all,
The issue of using mercs is one of those that depends on the where and the why. My own experience in dealing with this issue came about in researching the 1964 Congo Hostage Crisis. Leavenworth Paper #14 resulted. Many have read Mike Hoare's Congo Mercenary and it was nomninally the basis for the film, The Wild Geese. Both are works of fiction; the film is more honest about its romanticizing than Hoare. The mercenary operations in the Congo were multi-level:
The Ground Force: the real organizer of the ground op was Colonel Vandewalle who had been the last head of security in the Belgian Congo before independence. He was Belgium's man in organizing the Katangan Secession under Mosie Tshombe with a variety of mercenaries including Hoare and Roger Trinquier. When Tshombe came back in the 1964 crisis so did Vandewalle and he ultimately lead the mercenary column into Stanleyville from the south to link up with the Belgian Paracommandos.
The Air Force: the CIA and the USAF set up a Congolese Air America using T-6s, T-28s, and A26s (AKA B-26s) and Bay of Pigs Cuban pilots to fly close air support.
The Covert Force: there was also a merc/black element attached to Vandewalle's column to extract key personnel from Stanleyville.
All of this worked and then it did not. The Stanleyville and Paulis ops did save a large number of hostages. But more hostages were killed elsewhere in the next year. The mercenaries ended up revolting against the new Mobutu government and fought their way out via Bukavu.
In 1994 I raised the idea of contractors to secure the refugee camps in eastern Zaire, given the large number of ex-Rwandan army and militia members active in those camps. I suggested the Israeli-Zairian security company SOZAIS and even had the retired Isaraeli colonel who ran the company come out to Goma to do a site survey. SOZAIS used active soldiers from the DSP (the Mobutu regime guaranteors trained by Israel) to provide contract security to businesses and indiividuals. Ultimately a form of what I proposed did take place when the UNHCR hired a force of nearly 1000 DSP soldiers with "advisors" to help improve security in the camps. This helped the international workers but did nothing about the larger security issues in those camps; the ultimate fall out was the 1996 clearing of the camps and the 1997 and 1998 invasions of Zaire with a current death total in excess of 3 million.
Perhaps a merc force could have sopped the geoncide if someone had had the will to deply such a force. But I would say that the world did have a force capable of doing just that (UNAMIR) on the ground with a Commander willing to do it and nothing was done. I doubt seriously that the RPA (the rebels) would have accepted a merc force on their turf because they were already dealing with the French intervention and French assistance to the former government. Later when the RPA did move on the camps in 1996 using client militias, the former government and the militias had hired Serbian mercenaries to help train and lead their forces. They fared poorly against the RPA; I suspect any merc force interjected into this cauldron in 1994 would have shared a similar fate.
the closest thing to standing merc force in the world is the Foreign Legion. It allows France to do things that the French public and the regular military would not accept. Sometimes that is good as in the case in Kolwezi in 1978. Sometimes it is not: French activities in supporting and training genociidal killers in Rwanda are well documented. The 1st REPs rebellion in Algeria was another case where the use of forces loyal only to themselves caused France great problems.
And we have used mercs from time to time as an extension or lead for our own policy. The Flying Tigers in China were true mercenaries, drawing bounties for each Japanese plane shot down. That is not to take away from the valor or reputation of the AVG; Read Pappy Boyington's book for a warts and all view of the AVG.
My take on mercs is always measured against our national interests. If it is sufficiently in our interests to get involved militarily, then it should be sufficienty important to use our established forces.
best
Tom
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